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"Brickwork History."
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Experimental investigation of masonry building damage caused by surface tension cracks on slow-moving landslides
Slow-moving landslides cause significant economic losses associated with damage to facilities and interruption of human activity in mountainous regions and along river valleys. Physical vulnerability of structures exposed to slow-moving landslides is a required input for informed risk mitigation decision-making. However, the quantification of this vulnerability is still a major challenge. Few studies have been completed on this topic due to the limited historical data of the building damage associated with the comprehensive descriptions of the landslide mechanism. This research presents an experimental approach to investigating the mechanism of damage development and evolution on masonry buildings exposed to ground tension cracks associated with slow-moving landslides. A one-tenth scale model of a masonry building was designed and tested on the newly developed test table. The details of the testing setup are presented in this paper. The scaled model was constructed using sintered clay brick masonry and an unreinforced concrete foundation. An artificial tension crack was opened under the scaled model through the application of loading steps, in the direction parallel to the model foundation. The internal strains and associated forces developed on the scale model walls and foundation were measured by strain gauges. It was observed that the damage ranged from cracking to partial out-of-plane failure of the walls and the foundation. The damage level increased with the propagation of the tension crack on the test table. The final observation results were compared and validated against the field observations of damaged buildings on slow-moving landslides in TGR area in China. The experimental loading device simulated building damage caused by ground horizontal displacements and can bridge the gap in understanding the effects of slow-moving landslides on structures. It provided a new way to analyze the vulnerability of masonry structure under horizontal movement patterns of slow-moving landslides.
Journal Article
Seismic performance of brick masonry walls strengthened with engineered cementitious composites under lateral cyclic loads
Recent research has underscored the effectiveness of engineered cementitious composites (ECC) in retrofitting unreinforced masonry (URM) structures. The retrofitting method of embedding ECC in the bed mortar joints is suitable for strengthening historic masonry buildings because the ECC can be concealed within the mortar joints. This study introduces an experimental campaign aimed at understanding the effects of this strengthening method on the in-plane seismic performance of URM walls. Four half-scale masonry walls, one of them unreinforced and the remaining three reinforced with ECC, were built and tested under in-plane cyclic loads. From the test results, it was found that the proposed retrofitting method can mitigate brittle diagonal shear damage and improve the integrity of the masonry walls. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that ECC reinforcement effectively increased the seismic behavior of URM walls in terms of shear bearing capacity, ductile behavior, stiffness degradation, and energy dissipation capacity. The ductility coefficient is defined as the ratio of ultimate displacement to yield displacement. The maximum lateral load and ductility coefficient of the reinforced masonry walls increased by a maximum of 26.08 and 25.77%, respectively, in comparison with the URM wall. Additionally, the lateral bearing capacity of both unreinforced and reinforced specimens was assessed using theoretical models. The results showed that the theoretical model could be used to predict the maximum lateral loads of the specimens, with the error of the calculated and tested maximum lateral loads being within 5%. The hysteresis curves of ECC-reinforced walls were predicted using an idealized trilinear model and a modified Clough model, and the applicability of the hysteresis model was assessed by comparing the force demand history and energy dissipation history of the computed and experimental hysteresis curves.
Journal Article
Reconnaissance of the Effects of the MW5.7 (ML6.4) Jajarkot Nepal Earthquake of 3 November 2023, Post-Earthquake Responses, and Associated Lessons to Be Learned
On 3 November 2023, a moment magnitude (MW) 5.7 (Local Magnitude, ML6.4) earthquake struck the western region of Nepal, one of the most powerful seismic events since 1505 in the region. Even though the earthquake was of moderate magnitude, it caused significant damage to several masonry buildings and caused slope failures in some regions. The field reconnaissance carried out on 6–9 November by the study team, following the earthquake, conducted the first-hand preliminary damage assessment in the three most affected districts—Jajarkot; West Rukum; and Salyan. This study covers the observed typical structural failures and geotechnical case studies from the field study. To have a robust background understanding, this paper examines the seismotectonic setting and regional seismic activity in the region. The observations of earthquake damage suggest that most of the affected buildings were made of stone or brick masonry without seismic consideration, while most of the reinforced concrete (RC) buildings remained intact. Case histories of damaged buildings, the patterns, and the failure mechanisms are discussed briefly in this paper. Significant damage to Khalanga Durbar, a historical monument in Jajarkot, was also observed. Medium- to large-scale landslides and rockfalls were recorded along the highway. The motorable bridge in the Bheri River suffered from broken bolts, rotational movement at the expansion joint, and damage to the stoppers. The damage observations suggest that, despite the existence of building codes, their non-implementation could have contributed to the heavy impact in the region. This study highlights that the local population faces a potential threat of subsequent disasters arising from earthquakes and earthquake-induced landslides. This underscores the necessity for proactive measures in preparedness for future disasters.
Journal Article
An Experimental and Numerical Investigation of an Unreinforced Brick Masonry Structure Subjected to Base Excitation
The present work is focused on studying the behavior of unreinforced brick masonry (URBM) structure under the seismic loading. A single story unreinforced brick masonry structure was made on a shake table with a scale of 1:4. Based on the experimental findings, the failure of the URBM structure happened at frequency of 62.5 cycle per second (cps) which means the resonant frequency of the structure was 62.5 cps. Besides, the highest acceleration and displacement occurred at frequency 62.5 cps leading to confirming the resonance at the same frequency. The failure pattern of URBM structure is like a stair step that means in-plane failure has developed in the mortar. In addition, the numerical analysis of the same building was performed using the SAP2000 finite element software. A time history analysis was conducted using elastic properties of the brick masonry building. The numerical and experimental results of peak acceleration and displacement were obtained at the roof level of the structure with respect to the varying base excitation. Consequently, the numerical results corresponded well with the experimental outcomes.
Journal Article
Disregarded bonds: The running bond and face bond in the construction of solid face-brick walls – a historical review of American and English technical texts published up to the 1930s
Before the twentieth century, numerous solid face-brick façade walls in America showed a front laid in stretcher bond, an arrangement only used to construct half-brick thick partition walls until the early nineteenth century. Finishing walls with this bond was facilitated by a bonding system or structural bond called the 'running bond', which was widely applied during the second half of the nineteenth century but is now hardly known. Drawing on English and U.S. construction literature published up to the 1930s, this article comprehensively studies this unconventional bond and its predecessor, the face bond. With these bonds, the inter-leaf bonding system of the face-brick wall underwent changes, adapting to the aesthetic, economic and material conditions of each period. The running bond emerged as a solution strictly associated with using pressed bricks and was the first to allow total compositional and structural disarticulation between the front and backing of a wall.
Journal Article
Editorial
Here, Antipov describes how, through an analysis of building materials, it was possible to illustrate the course of development of construction practices in medieval Novgorod. Beatriz Mugayar Kühl in Railways in Sao Paulo (Brazil): impacts on construction culture and on the transformation of the territory (1860-1940), contributes an important historical analysis of the growth of the railway system in Brazil, describing its expansion, in the late nineteenth century, primarily as a means for British plantation owners to transport coffee to ports, and its decline in the twentieth century as road use increased. The impact of railway building on wider construction industry culture was significant, in terms of building types, building systems, construction labour and skills, and building materials, especially the use of brick masonry which replaced the traditional system of rammed earth.
Journal Article
Towards Western construction in China
China’s move towards western models of construction is documented by an account of the inconspicuous brickwork of Shanghai – one of the earliest western construction methods introduced into modern China. A series of questions are raised, based on extensive fieldwork. This article records the study of printed resources set within the broader context of circulating western knowledge in China, and summarises types of literature important for construction studies. The paper considers three Chinese books to help explore the sources of western masonry and reveal hitherto un-noted facts.
The paper concludes, for the first time, that the simple technology of Victorian brick masonry was a principal source and antecedent of modern Shanghai brickwork. Distinct from the tradition of transmitting construction-related technology by oral instruction, textbooks, handbooks and manuals constituted a new, and powerful means for the dissemination of technical knowledge in modern China. The interpretation of western technology appears to have been selective in Shanghai; a typical example is the brick bonding methods independent of closer bricks compared to English construction. Interestingly, Chinese authors did not fully adopt western construction modes, and old Chinese knowledge was incorporated into new systems of construction, greatly conditioned by material problems, as this study reveals. The spread of construction technology knowledge involved broad cross-field collaboration in and across Shanghai, the complexity of which suggests a shift of knowledge systems, rather than a direct transfer of building technology based on western construction methods.
Journal Article
Evaluation of seismic displacement demand for unreinforced masonry shear walls
Unreinforced, non-engineered low-strength brick masonry structures comprise a large percentage of buildings in the Himalayan region and have been extensively damaged in recent earthquakes. Due to the high seismic hazard of the region and the inherent vulnerability of non-engineered masonry structures, a seismic assessment of masonry construction in this region is imperative. In this study, a suite of strong ground motions is developed using data from major Himalayan earthquakes. Using a mechanistic-based procedure for predicting the monotonic load envelope which identifies limit states of cracking, strength, and collapse using stress-based criteria, a hysteretic model was calibrated to experimental data of unreinforced masonry shear walls. Nonlinear time history analyses are performed on the validated single degree of freedom models of two unreinforced masonry walls. The analytical results correlate well with observed damage to masonry structures in Himalayan earthquakes. Peak ground acceleration of ground motion is observed to be the key parameter influencing displacement of walls. A linearly increasing trend is observed between the PGA and the observed displacement up to a PGA value of 0.1g. A weak correlation is observed between displacement and ground motion frequency parameters.
Journal Article
Roman Field-System Earthworks in the Birklands and Belhaugh Hays, Nottinghamshire
Processing and analysis of LiDAR data in Nottinghamshire has identified the survival of earthwork field-systems beneath woodland in some of the oldest established parts of Sherwood Forest. The morphology and alignment of these field-systems strongly suggest that they represent a survival of the late Iron Age and Roman brickwork-plan field-systems of North Nottinghamshire and South Yorkshire with considerable potential to elucidate the history of abandonment of these fields and the establishment of Sherwood Forest.
Journal Article